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Education and Skills Bill

We have been stuck in this important territory for quite a while, in my speech and in those of others, and I would now like to move on to consider some of the practical issues that affect this group of young people, as they are at least as significant as others we have been discussing. I have used these issues as tests when thinking about how the proposals might be adopted in my constituency, and whether they would be effective. We need to start by considering who constitutes this group of young people who, sadly, leave the education and training system at the age of 16 and, as a consequence, probably end up with much more limited opportunities, much more limited incomes and many other associated problems in later life. We know who these people are; we do not have to guess. They are often from highly disadvantaged backgrounds and will often have secured few or no qualifications. They might well already have a history of truancy; the truancy figures are extremely high in schools in many parts of the country, which is relevant to the issue that we are discussing. They will probably have high levels of special needs, with emotional or mental health problems in some cases. They might be single parents. There is a whole issue about how we should deal with people aged 16 or 17 who have had a child, and we shall no doubt come back to that in Committee. In some cases, they will be caring for a close relative. Sadly, many young people end up in that situation, sometimes because of terminal illness in the family. They might have a drug addiction or be involved in crime. They could be in prison. The young people who will be affected by the Bill might also be in employment and doing extremely well, but in a small business with no accredited training provision. They might none the less be learning the disciplines of the workplace and getting the motivation that they never received from an education system that sometimes seems completely irrelevant to those who do not have an orientation towards the subjects that we have been teaching in schools for a long time. The Government are, however, gradually starting to tackle that issue. In regard to the practical needs of all those people, we must consider three issues. First, are we dealing with the real causes of their leaving the education and training system at 16? Are we focusing on dealing with the causes of the problem, rather than treating the symptoms? There are all sorts of problems in society that we could try to solve simply by passing a law to abolish the problem on paper, without actually dealing with the substance. Alison Wolf's excellent paper, to which the Chairman of the Select Committee referred earlier, lists in one of its later chapters a whole series of schemes—some of them Government-backed—with a proven record of having real benefits in tackling educational disadvantage early on. She says:"““There is no need to settle for an education policy with such poor outcomes. Well-demonstrated and highly positive benefits could be expected from using the money””—" that is, the money to be spent on implementing the Bill—"““in other ways.””" For example, she talks about"““intensive one-to-one reading tuition for struggling primary school children””," which has a well-proven record in dealing with educational disadvantage. She also talks about the funding of tuition in English as a second language, and about ensuring that there is an educational entitlement to the two additional years of education or training, which people will be able to take at a more flexible time. I shall return to that last point in a moment. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath touched on another proposal that would tackle disadvantage, which, sadly, the Government have yet to take up, and that is the pupil premium. I am glad that the Conservatives are showing some sympathy with this idea, although I am not sure that that sympathy has yet been illustrated by the shadow Chancellor providing any money to fund the proposal. Frankly, a pupil premium policy with no funding associated with it will not be effective in challenging educational disadvantage. A question that we can legitimately ask the Government is whether it is right to bring in this draconian extension of Government powers over individuals, their families and businesses without having done much more to invest in those areas and without having put in place a coherent structure for the curriculum and qualifications which meets the needs of these young people. The second issue for Ministers is why the Government have rejected the idea of adopting a similar course in terms of aspiration, while building in more freedom and flexibility by making this an entitlement rather than an obligation at 16 to 18. It is absolutely right to see it as unacceptable that the most affluent youngsters in our society should have free education right from the age of three or four up to 18—with potentially further subsidies beyond that in higher education—when many of the most disadvantaged leave the education system at 16 without having the ability to draw down on that funding.